Wow! POM shows chutzpah

Not sure if you’ve seen the ads floating around the internet today for POM, but you need to. Here’s POM’s website.

Basically the FTC has totally smacked POM hard for unsubstantiated product benefit claims in their advertising and marketing. So, in response to the FTC, they have taken out full page ads for POM using some quotes directly from the presiding administrative judge from the FTC:

“Competent and reliable scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the consumption of pomegranate juice and pomegranate extract supports prostate health, including by prolonging PSA doubling time in men with rising PSA after primary treatment for prostate cancer.”

– Judge Chappell, Chief Administrative Law Judge, FTC

In the Matter of POM Wonderful LLC, Initial Decision (5/17/2012), page 282

POM's ads with Judge's quotes

“Pomegranate juice is a natural fruit product with health promoting characteristics. The safety of pomegranate juice is not in doubt.”

– Judge Chappell, Chief Administrative Law Judge, FTC

In the Matter of POM Wonderful LLC, Initial Decision (5/17/2012), page 103

I must say, I am impressed. I always believe in doing everything you can to stand out in a crowd. And POM gets my personal award for standing out BIG TIME. I’m interested to see what the FTC does with this. It’ll be fun to watch on FTC’s blog.

Watchout!! They're coming...

(UPDATED: See end of post)

If you happen to have websites in the UK, be prepared to make some serious changes with the new UK Cookie Law that requires you receive a visitor’s explicit consent before you can place a tracking cookie.

How serious is it? Well, if £500,000 ($782,350 USD) doesn’t sound like much, you don’t have anything to worry about. The rest better pay attention.

A recent article from the BBC on the United Kingdom Cookie Law, states that “From Sunday (May 27, 2012), sites must obtain ‘informed consent’ from visitors before saving cookies on a machine.”

Here’s the real rub, the article also states that:

“The guidelines, set by the EU, mean visitors must be told what cookies are being placed on their machine. Typically, this will mean a pop-up window seeking consent.”

Are they really intending to force EVERY visitor to consent to cookies every time they come to a site? That’s crazy. (Maybe our popup optin best practices will come in handy for you Brits.

So What Should You Do?

You can imagine, that some savvy website owners are going to wait for 80% of the other UK website owners to implement the changes. They know the minute they do put a popup that says “Please consent to having us place a technological method for tracking your actions on our site, and related sites” their conversions are probably going to drop, and they are not going to be able to properly track conversions and traffic sources (many affiliates are going to have some serious troubles), which will mean drops in traffic.

If you’re an affiliate, which site would you send your traffic to? The one that can pay you, or the one that says “We did see any conversions from you.” Yikes!

Well, the good news is, we here in the US will be able to watch what happens in the UK. I’m sure we’re not going to be too far behind the curve in getting a similar law in the US.

BTW, I wonder if an device identification system like Blue Cava is considered tracking… (Blue Cava can track users as each computer has a unique “fingerprint”. Very cool technology.) These may be the next steps in tracking when cookies are no longer allowed.

Currently, our clients in the UK are taking a “wait and see” attitude, as there is no clear compliance guidance on implementation of the law.

UPDATED 5/29/2012: We’ve gotten a few emails regarding a post by the Guardian UK, the UK Info Commissioner’s Office has had a last minute change of heart: websites can assume cookie consent for now. However, the EU requires explicit consent. Looks like there is still a lot that needs to be settled with UK and EU websites. (Thanks to Hugh at www.internetmarketinggourmet.com for the link!)

2-3% average conversion rate

Usually I give the text book reference answer, “According to Industry Retailer, the average conversion rate for ecommerce sites is about 2-3%.” And there is usually a sigh of relief, a pause, and then, “Whew… Cool, we’re at about 1.5%, so we’re almost average.”

Seriously?!?! You are going to be eaten alive if you’re goal is to be average. I don’t like to tell people the answer, because I feel like, “why in the world do you want to be average or even be compared to average? Stay away from average!“

The question I usually ask is: “So why do you think 98.5% of everyone that comes to your site leaves?” Usually there is a long pause, then a reflective “I’ve never thought of it that way.”

I totally understand. We’re all just struggling to keep our head above water with 1,837 more tasks to do by the end of the day. We’re running around mach 10 with our hair on fire, and barely keeping up with the infinite loop of the email stream. All the while totally ignoring the few priorities that REALLY matter to the bottom line.

So, as a savvy marketer (being one of the 10-15 people who actually read our blog), your goal is to figure out “why the heck is 98.5% not takin’ the bait?”

The 5 Reasons Why People Don’t Buy

It really comes down to 5 reasons why people end up leaving your site with their wallet in the pocket (of course for lead gen sites, it’s their valuable private information they leave with).

5 Reason Why They Ain’t Buyin’:

1. Got no money
2. Don’t want what you got
3. Don’t believe a word you’re saying
4. Have no clue what you are talking about
5. Can’t understand what they’re supposed to do

The good news is that you’ll NEVER convert those who fall under 1 and 2. So, you can ignore them. In fact, you MUST ignore them!

Just focus on building trust (not just slapping up logos),  simply explaining your product and service in understandable language, and clearly point out the process they need to do (call to actions) now that they believe you.

If you want to improve your conversion rate (We’re talkin’ sky-rocket improvements) just contact us today.

Verisign recently published a study demonstrating that the “trust index” of your average web visitor is at a paltry 61.5 points out of a possible 100. (

In other words, your average web visitor is extremely wary and rates the overall trust worthiness of unfamiliar websites just above an “F”.

It’s for this reason that many security & trust logos exist – they’re designed to bring outside credibility and reinforce that a new user can trust your website.

Most of the big players in the trust logo space offer a litany of studies demonstrating how simply adding their logo will improve your website conversion rate.

We’ve found, however, that proper trust logo placement can make a significant difference in how much the conversion rate will improve.

Many websites tend to place their trust symbols in two places:

• At the top of the page
• Under or next to their checkout form

SportChalet.com, for instance, places their trust images on the very bottom of their checkout form:

We’ve found, however, that placing your trust logo next to the most critical fields in your process can outperform placement anywhere else.

For example, on a recent project our client needed to collect both Social Security & Driver’s License information from their users.

Rather than leaving the symbol at the top of the page where it was originally placed, we moved the symbol closer to the crucial fields:

This simple, intuitive change led to nearly a 9% gain in the form’s conversion rate!

In the project referenced above, we increased the overall conversion rate by more than 65% using this trick and a variety of others, so make sure to contact us today if you’d like to drastically improve your conversion rate.

Our advice to SportChalet.com and other ecommerce sites would be to test their security symbols next to the user’s credit card information field to address the user’s fears at the point of transaction.

The bottom line is if you’ve spent the money on a security symbol, test the placement to drive substantially better results!

P.S. – Contact us today to increase your conversion rate . . .

We work on a performance basis and charge nothing up front.

If you want to drastically improve your conversion rate contact us today.

A landing page is a like a conversation with all the subtlety thrown out. This is not a conversation you have on a first date when you are extremely polite and trying to pick up hints (“does he really like me?” “Did that anecdote from my time in jail scare her?”).

A landing page is where you, savvy marketer, are extremely upfront. You tell people who you are, what you have, and why they want it. People glance at you. They either run screaming for the door (the ‘x’ button) or settle in for a few seconds longer.

There is nothing subtle about this, which is why you need to beat your message into visitors when they arrive. Continuing with our series on college information landing pages, we’re taking a look at a landing page from SearchSchools. The page has a lot going for it, but it needs to lose the subtle hints and start slapping us in the face.

Is there anything I can’t do?

The first impression of the page is great. The layout is clean and the graphics are sharp. The image of the woman on her computer draws attention to the form. All these are good things.

But the page is a little vague on the details. It’s being too subtle. The logo at the top, for instance, clearly tells me that I’m here to search for schools. I look at the image of the woman, and, ah yes, she appears to be searching too. And look, I can use this nifty form to start my own search.

But I don’t want to search for just schools. I want to search for online universities. I don’t want my search cluttered by results from traditional colleges or local grade schools. I want you to take all that stuff out for me. Hmmm… maybe I should try a different site?

The visitor stops here to think, and that’s always bad. Some people will figure out, “yes, I see this headline mentions ‘online,’ and this tiny text seems to imply ‘online courses,’ so maybe this is the right place.” But not everyone will bother with thinking. They’ll just leave — even though you have exactly what they want. This is why you must tell them exactly what you have.

If I’m looking for an online class and you tell me that’s what your page is for, then I’m ecstatic. You have already done the hard work by separating the wheat from the chaff. Now I can sift through the wheat and find exactly what I want. I can’t search for traditional schools — but I don’t want to, so that’s great.

Slap me in the face!

The page’s headline, “earn your degree 100% online,” does suggest that we can search for online schools, but it doesn’t slap us on the forehead with it. Also, the top-half of the page draws the most attention, so the headline is not noticed right away, which makes its message even more subtle.

We need to add emphasis to the top of the page, and we should start with the headline. Move it up so visitors see it right away, and tweak its copy so it’s dead obvious what we can do and why we should do it.

Work is a four-letter word

The page’s form is very nice. It is short, simple, and direct. There are only three fields to fill out, and two of them are drop boxes. The amount of work required is minimal, which is great, because everyone hates work — especially visitors to landing pages.

Where the form goes wrong, though, is the button. The call to action at the top of the form looks great, but the button’s term “search” implies work, and work is always bad. You don’t even want to border on suggesting that people work. We’re talking about college students here!

Instead, use a phrase that points to why people should search. Some test suggestions:

1. “Get my education now!”
2. “Start today!”
3. “Find now”

Would you like to have one of our conversion rate optimization experts review your site? Just click here to contact us today and learn how we can drastically increase your website conversion rate for no money up front, and backed by our $10,000 guarantee!

SearchSchools

Looking for a college is like looking for new cereal at the mega-grocery store. You have a rough idea of what you want, but your choices are endless. You find yourself just staring at the boxes, dumbfounded.

Plenty of websites have popped up to help students move from “dumbfounded” to “college-bound.” We’re going to tear down some of their landing pages to help build your expertise, starting with DegreeLeap’s College Finder Tool.

Whitespace is not blank-space

I commend the designers of this page for their minimalist approach. It’s always good to have plenty of whitespace so it’s easy to look at the page and so you don’t find yourself squinting and wondering what the heck it’s trying to say.

But this page goes a little too far. Almost one-third of the main section is completely blank, and it makes the bullet points look like they’re crammed under the headline. The whitespace appears to be encroaching on the other elements, rather than letting them relax and spread out, which completely defeats the reason for having whitespace in the first place. These guys should test spacing out the bullet points and adding some content below them. Perhaps an image of a smiling student next to a quote about why they love DegreeLeap?

There is also a good-sized piece of unused real estate under the form. Right now, that space is showing off the page’s nifty background, which isn’t doing much for conversions. I would test adding a trust logo, testimonial, or some other call-out to make this section start achieving some goals instead of wasting space (like a lazy college student).

I know what to do — why should I care?

Enough tearing down, here’s what I like: First, the headline is clear as day. How many times have you written a three-word headline? Not many, I suspect. People don’t have to guess what they can do on this page. It’s more obvious than a bad wig.

The page also makes great use of bolding. Instead of emphasizing hype-words like AMAZING and INNOVATIVE, the designers made the bullet points easier to scan by putting their main points in bold. It only takes a glance to know that this site uses a matching engine to pair you with up to 10 schools, whether online or off, and that it’s been used by more than 100,000 people.

What these bullet points lack, though, is an answer to why factor. Why should I bother filling out this form instead of going to one of the other millions of college search sites? What’s so great about this one? What exactly is your site going to help me accomplish? A list of features doesn’t do much to get me excited.

When does it all END? Oh, very soon.

The progress bar on this page is a nice feature, especially since the form is displayed gradually. Rather than making people wonder whether they’ll ever finish the form, the little progress bar tells them “hey, chin up, you’re almost there.” Which is good, because if you leave people guessing, the first thing they’ll wonder is “why don’t I try another website?”

Faster than the speed of words

Images are magical little things. They can communicate faster than words. You can look at an image on a box of Canadian cigarettes, for example, and instantly realize that you’re not doing yourself any favors by sucking one down.

That’s why we love the school logos at the bottom of this page. They instantly tell people, “hey, you may not know us, but look, these are our pals! Everyone knows our pals!” The visitors are comforted in knowing that they’re not in some nasty back alley of the internet. It makes them more willing to share their information.

We’d love to see more imagery applied to some of the unused space on the page. Seals showing that a website is “trusted” or gives a “100% satisfaction guarantee” can instantly tell people that they should lay their concerns aside and start filling out the form.

Would you like to have one of our conversion rate optimization experts review your site? Just click here to contact us today and learn how we can drastically increase your website conversion rate for no money up front, and backed

Degree Leap

If you’re like the other gazillion websites trying to get people to sign up for an email newsletter, then you probably have an opt-in popup form. You know, it’s that annoying lay-over popup box that asks new visitors to opt-in with their name and emails.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were landing page optimization best practices for designing these? Then your opt-in popups could grab many more subscribers right out of the gate. At the very least, it would be good to know which elements are worth focusing on in testing.

Since we thought it would help a LOT of people to get some straight answers on popup opt-in forms, we got Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker on the phone (Conversion Voodoo is very lucky to work with the best of the best in online marketing). We had an idea for him:

“Whaddya think about us running some tests on the opt-in popup for your newsletter?” Jeremy’s reply was about as easy as they come, “Have at it!” So we did.

Not only that, but Jeremy requested that we post the results for his audience. All we could say was “absolutely!” We rarely get to publish results because 99% of our clients want to remain anonymous — so this was sweet!

Our goal was to test the “default” settings on the popup to see if there were the better ways to convert visitors into subscribers. We hoped to find some best practices to share with you for your website that may not have a horde of visitors every month like the Shoemoney blog. Although we counted more than 30 different elements in opt-in popups, we whittled that number down to the most relevant (i.e. the ones you should care about), which you’ll see in the tests below.

Frankly, even we were surprised by some of the test results. Wait till you see how your opt-in popup form should be designed to get the most conversions — and you better believe these aren’t the default settings on many of the off-the-shelf packages out there. Good luck and happy testing!

Headline:
If you’ve been keeping up with our landing page tear-down inspiration posts you know that one of the first things we test is the headline copy. For ShoeMoney’s popup we tested 6 varying headlines and found that there were two clear winners over the baseline.

Hover over the headlines below to see our findings:

The two headline winners both say exactly what the user is going to “get” when he/she signs up. These headlines also cater to the user’s want to make money online. You’l also notice they use specificity: “7 simple tricks”, and also urgency: “Limited offer”. Find a way to entice your website visitors with something of value worthy of their time.

Inline Field Labels:
A problem that we found with ShoeMoney’s newsletter popup was that once the user clicked into the field to type their email address, the field label disappeared! Simply by dimming the label within the field we were able to get a good sized bump in conversions. Take a look at your own forms and make sure that the labels are always visible.

Hover over the image below to see our changes and findings:

Bottom Copy:
This was another simple test. We compared the baseline bottom copy, which asked users to follow the RSS feed, to having no bottom copy at all. We believed that all friction that can keep a user from the targeted action should be removed. Guess what? It worked… big time.

As a note: we decided to leave the bottom copy visible for the final popup. Though if you want to remove something similar from your own site, we whole-heartily recommend it! And don’t be afraid of losing RSS feed subscribers because once you have then on your email list and are building a solid relationship with your users, you can always ask them to join your feed later!

Hover over the image below to see our changes and findings:

Auto-Center:
While running tests we realized that the newsletter popup on ShoeMoney’s site was in a fixed position. If the user scrolled down the page, the popup stayed at the top and was no longer visible to the user. We tested this baseline against a popup that scrolled the page with the user.

Interestingly enough, the popup that stayed at the top of the page was the winner! We believe this is due to the user still be able to see, but not reach, content behind the dimmed background of the page caused by the newsletter popup. If the user sees something they want to reach, they would be more inclined to enter their information into the popup and opt in.

As a note: on another client’s newsletter popup there was an adverse affect, so this is something you’d want to test on your own site.

Close Button:
When doing market research we find interesting items that competitors to our clients are using on their own site and we tend to test them into our own tests to see how well they do.

One particular item was the close button on the popup. ShoeMoney’s baseline popup had an “X” button at the top right corner which we tested against a “no thanks” link below the signup button at the bottom of the popup.

Turns out that ShoeMoney had it right from the beginning! The “X” button was a clear winner over the “no thanks” link.

Hover over the image below to see our changes and findings:

Clicking Dimmed Area (outside):
A notable problem we found with the baseline ShoeMoney popup was that if a user clicked on the dimmer area (outside the popup) then the popup would be closed! By tweaking the code so that the popup stayed even when clicked outside we were able to increase opt-ins by 19%.

Re-Popup if Ignored:
The final, and most code-intensive, test we performed was that if the popup was ignored by a user and that same user came to the ShoeMoney page again at a later time, the popup would reappear until the close button was clicked. The baseline has the popup disappear forever if ignored.

Even with this seemingly simple change, we increased opt-ins by a whopping 31%!

Conclusion
Never stop testing! When we went through this newsletter popup we had the intentions of testing every little detail that most people wouldn’t think would matter. Things such as different close buttons or fixed vs. scroll popups. As you have seen some of the smallest changes will lead to big conversion increases.

We hope this post has inspired all of you to jump onto your own websites right now and start making a list of items to test because there are big gains to be had, we guarantee it!

Note: All tests had confidence level of at least 95%, (so these are highly relevant data points) and well over 500,000 unique visitors during testing period (Shoemoney is a pretty big blog). Remember, always test new ideas into your site as your mileage my vary. You also should take into consideration if you should even use a popup form. We don’t advocate using popups, but we also understand how critical they can be to some sites to gain a lasting connection to visitors. You get to decide… Viva America!

Last year we posted about our Merry Christmas v. Happy Holidays test we ran for one of our clients. This year we decided to some landing page optimization tests with variations of the Christmas theme.

If you’ve followed our blog before, you know that creating a sense of urgency for your users to act usually increases conversions. Since we practice what we preach, we decided to run a headline on one of our client’s websites doing just that. We tested a headline that reminds them how near Christmas is. We came up with 2 variations of this headline: one that just states the days, and another that states the days, hours, minutes, and seconds and counts down in real time.

The test:

Here’s the day countdown:

10 days til Christmas.

Here’s the realtime seconds countdown, +10.2% in conversion rate:

9 days, 13:22:03 til Christmas.

Validity notes: This test ran on a site that gets more than 4,000 conversions a day. It was declared a winner with over 95% confidence in less than a week. Additionally, conversions are actual end-goals, not just clicks to the next page.

Why does this work?

It emphasizes the urgency.

Here's a simple experiment to make the point. Try to do any task in one minute. Now try to do the same task while having your friend audibly countdown the time left for you every second. The latter scenario is far more stressful. Your heart starts pumping, sweat starts beading on your forehead, and adrenaline starts coursing through your veins. While we’re not trying to invoke stress in our users, we do want them to notice the urgency. Typically conversions increase when your users have slight pressure to make a time-sensitive decision as soon as possible.

For years advertisers have known that it pays to announce "Limited time offer!" We're taking that same concept to the next level.

It catches their eye.

Remember those early banner ads that caught your attention by flashing bright colors at you? Same thing here. Although we'd like to think we're being a little more polite.

Things that move catch your attention. It’s a science fact. What do camouflaging animals do when they are trying to hide from their predators in plain sight? They hold still. Not moving allows things to blend in and be overlooked. And the opposite holds true too.

The Downside to this test: Depression sinks in the day after Christmas... You'll have to turn this winning variant off and it's back to the baseline.

Here's our Christmas gift to you

If you'd like to use this on your site, just customize the following code snippet. Here's the HTML that will display the countdown:

<span id="xmascounter"></span> until Christmas.

Here's the JavaScript that will keep it ticking:

function calculateXmasCounter() {
    //calculate
    var now = new Date();
    var xmas = new Date(2011, 11, 25, 0, 0, 0, 0); //Xmas 2011 (be careful: 11 is December)
    var hoursleft = 23 - now.getHours();
    var minutesleft = 59 - now.getMinutes();
    var secondsleft = 59 - now.getSeconds();
    var daysleft = Math.floor((xmas - now) / (1000*60*60*24));
    //format 0 prefixes
    if (minutesleft < 10) minutesleft = "0" + minutesleft;
    if (secondsleft < 10) secondsleft = "0" + secondsleft;
    //display
    document.getElementById('xmascounter').innerHTML = daysleft + " days, " + hoursleft + ":" +minutesleft + ":" + secondsleft;
}
calculateXmasCounter();
setInterval(calculateXmasCounter, 1000);

Contact us today to increase your Conversion Rate . . .

We put our money where our mouth is – click here to contact us today and learn how we can drastically increase your website conversion rate for no money up front, and backed by our $10,000 guarantee!

Here is (our mockup) of Expedia’s experiment – see the field deletion in Variant B?

At a glance, they simply dropped the “Company name:” field and that increased their site PROFIT by $12 million a year according to Silicon.com.

Why was changing this field so critical?

Because that single field broke the flow of their entire UI:

• When visitors see the “Company” field, they were confused.
• Visitors thought Expedia meant they should put in their Bank name.
• Users then put their’s Bank’s address into the billing fields.
• This led to failed transactions, which led to abandons.

Conversion rate optimization gains are often just a function of getting your broken UI the $!@$!@ out of the way of your end user . . .

Yes, it’s that damn simple and you need to start by understanding how users ACTUALLY interact with your funnel.

Do it yourself, have us do it for you, but heck just do it.

Here’s a breakdown of our favorite platforms to learn more about how to uncover buried friction in your conversion funnel:

• UserTesting.com – For less than $100 you can have three complete strangers go through your website, attempt to perform a task, and listen to their annotation and observe them through a screen capture.
• UserFly.com– UserFly is the more macro-version of UserTesting – this system allows you to watch as live user sessions play out on your site, and dig into the data.
• ClickTale.com– Incredible set of tools, the “attention heatmaps” in particular have provided us with double digit conversion insights on a regular basis, well worth the price of admission as well as their user session recording.
• Finally, worth a mention is a newer tool that has disruptive potential -GazeHawk.com provides eye-tracking studies for less than $50.00.

Online solutions like CrazyEgg.com mimic the functionality without being as exacting, and most traditional eye-tracking vendors rely on expensive hardware solutions and charge 10 – 20x that fee.

If you think $12 million is a big number, make sure not to miss the story of the button that increased sales by $300,000,000.

Check out more Conversion Voodoo content . . .

• Bank an 11% conversion rate increase with a “Commitment Checkbox”
• Proper placement of “trust logos” can make a huge difference in conversion rate.
• 3 Landing Page Teardowns for Inspiration

Contact us today to increase your Conversion Rate . . .

We put our money where our mouth is – click here to contact us today and learn how we can drastically increase your website conversion rate for no money up front, and backed by our $10,000 guarantee!

Alright, you’ve gotten someone on your website. They like what they’re seeing. They want a loan. They take a look at your online application and — that’s it. They think “Wow. That looks like a ton of work. I wonder what’s up on Facebook?” And away they go.

We’re continuing our three-part series on auto loan landing pages today, and we’re hitting on something almost every loan site screws up: form pages. The forms are way too cluttered! They’re traumatizing to look at and even more painful to fill out. People would rather redeem beer cans for nickels than use these to apply for a loan.

Normally we focus on landing pages, but today we’re opening it up to online forms. Too many companies are killing their completion rates. We can stand by no longer.

The vertical groove

Whether you realize it or not, there is a rhythm internet users get into when filling out form fields. It goes something like this: first name, last name, email, address, city… and so on. When the fields are in a single column, the information just flows out. The users keep going until they’re done. You never want to interrupt this rhythm. But when there are multiple columns, it disrupts their flow. They have to stop, scroll up, think about what to do (ugh!), and start again. So keep it simple, keep it vertical, and don’t make them work anymore than they have to.

Our tests have consistently shown that having a single column of form fields on a longer form increases conversion rates, even without any other changes (when compared to a multi-column newspaper style layout). This makes sense when you think about it, because a multi-column format is confusing.

Who the heck are you?

Brands like Wells Fargo have a big advantage: people know them. Their logo conjures up feelings that have been embedded by millions and millions of dollars in advertising. The logo is like a big stamp on the page that immediately tells people “We’re not some fly-by-night internet scam. You know us. Don’t worry.”

So why not use that asset to your advantage on your form pages? That’s what Wells Fargo did by including it at the top of their auto loan application page. That logo makes people feel better when, while typing in their social security numbers, they look up and think “am I sure I this is safe?”

You, savvy marketer, might not be as lucky as the marketers at Wells Fargo. The people filling out your form might not know much about your company — and that’s OK. You just need to provide some assurance that you won’t use their information to do something unsavory, like buy mail-order pain killers from Mexico.

Try including logos from well-known organizations that you’re associated with, such as the Better Busine

ss Bureau. Also test using logos from well-known publications that have featured your company (“As seen in ****”). The idea is to use the power of these well-known brands to lend your company credibility and assure users. Of course, you always want to ask permission before adding another company’s logo to your site.

Let me get your digits

As far as phone numbers go, we like what we’re seeing. First of all, a phone number is provided to speak directly to a loan officer who can help users fill out the form. Users don’t have to click to a “contact us” page to see the number — which is great. They can stay right on the page without extra clicks and further distraction. What’s even better is the office’s hours are posted so people don’t waste even more of their lives listening to robotic voices in a call system maze.

Toward the bottom of the page, we noticed that Wells Fargo is aware that they’ve made it to the 21st century. The form doesn’t bother asking for a home phone number and instead requests a “primary phone number” as a required field and makes “secondary phone number” an optional field.

Requiring people to provide a “home” phone number when so many people no longer have one only forces people to stop and think “hmm…I don’t have one of home number. Should I leave this blank? Oh, I can’t leave it blank. It’s required. Well, I guess I’ll just put my mobile number. Oh, but that other field asks for my mobile number. Hmm… I hope this doesn’t stop me from getting the loan. I really want that hybrid.” All this eats up valuable effort that should be spent filling out your form.

Keep them on the form — do not link elsewhere

“Learn more” links can be tremendously helpful. They can clear up confusion around privacy policies, return policies, or in this case, immigration status. But these links can cause more problems than they solve when they send someone to a new webpage.

Remember that rhythm we were talking about? That flow people get into when they’re filling out forms? The flow that you never want to interrupt? Well, if you send them to a new page, what you’ve done is worse than interrupt their flow. You’ve put them into a new world from which the only escape is to stop, think, and navigate a return — or give up. Then, once they’re back, they have to think about where they left off and where to start again.

All this is unnecessary. You’ve worked hard to get these people to this form, so don’t send them somewhere else. That’s just adding work. Instead, test using pop-ups to provide little bits of additional information. That way, the user never leaves the form, and when they’re done reading, they’re right back where they left off.

Remember: Form pages are not the same as landing pages. However, both combine hundreds of variables that can be tested and optimized to improve results.

To see our comments, just rollover the images and our notes and suggestions will popup.

WellsFargo

Would you like to have one of our conversion rate optimization experts review your site? Just click here to contact us today and learn how we can drastically increase your website conversion rate for no money up front, and backed